MCA Blog Staff Writers

It’s an exciting time for cancer research, and that’s true of mesothelioma as much as it is for many more common types of cancer. One of the areas that has seen a lot of activity in recent years is immunotherapy, a category of different treatments that aim to activate or boost the body’s natural ability to fight diseases, such as cancer.

Many patients who are diagnosed with mesothelioma eventually undergo some form of surgery to remove tumors and surrounding tissue that may contain cancerous cells. This is true in cases where doctors are attempting to remove the cancer completely (curative treatment), as well as in situations where the main goal is palliative care – that is, treatment designed to ease suffering and relieve pain, but not necessarily with the intent of curing the disease.

Politics can be ugly, and as we near Election Day – just a little more than a month away – that ugliness is sure to exhibit itself more and more. That’s true in any election year, but it seems even more true this year.

As Mesothelioma Awareness Day on September 26 is getting closer, we wanted to shift the focus of our blog series from how the disease affects patients, to how we can get rid of the disease altogether. Of course, any discussion about stopping mesothelioma before it even starts must begin with a conversation about what it will take to ban the use of asbestos, the only known cause of this deadly and terrible disease.

Earlier this year, Carol Mata was awarded the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance Scholarship for the Fall 2016 semester. Her winning essay told the story of her father, who passed away after being diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer a year and a half ago.

Mesothelioma Awareness Day is only two short weeks away, on September 26. In the run-up to that day, the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance is reaching out to a number of partners – including patients, survivors, doctors, researchers, advocates, and others – to get their thoughts about the issues surrounding mesothelioma and what we can do about it.

Mesothelioma Awareness Day is September 26. Leading up to that day, the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance is reaching out to patients, survivors, advocates, doctors, researchers, and others who are involved in awareness efforts around mesothelioma to get their thoughts on important topics related to this rare form of cancer.

The Cancer Moonshot Initiative is continuing to move along, and it’s gaining more and more attention from those outside of the community. In fact, one of the presidential candidates even mentioned it in a stump speech, acknowledging the importance of the program while promising to keep it going.

One of the primary treatments for pleural mesothelioma is radiation therapy. Often used as an adjuvant therapy (i.e., as a secondary treatment after surgery and/or chemotherapy), radiation helps reduce the size tumors in the chest and can alleviate pain. However, radiation cannot distinguish between cancerous cells and noncancerous cells, which means that it can damage healthy tissue – sometimes significantly.

“AICR estimates that approximately one-third of cases of the most common cancers in the U.S. could be prevented by eating healthy, being active, and staying lean. That's an estimated 374,000 cases of cancer in the United States that would never happen.”

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